


the green globe's broken

by heart_nouveau



Series: when my brothers and my sisters slept [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, F/F, F/M, Future Fic, Mental Health Issues, Rivers, Water
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 18:32:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heart_nouveau/pseuds/heart_nouveau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the Tyrell marriage plot had worked? Sansa in Highgarden, spiraling into depression.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the green globe's broken

**Author's Note:**

> On winter’s margin, see the small birds now  
> With half-forged memories come flocking home  
> To gardens famous for their charity.  
> The green globe’s broken; vines like tangled veins  
> Hang at the entrance to the silent wood.  
>  **On Winter’s Margin, by Mary Oliver**
> 
>  
> 
> This can be imagined as an alternate universe in which Sansa and Margaery had a relationship in King's Landing, but not one of great emotional depth. Just in case my other work wasn't depressing enough for you...

 

 

“I hate this place,” Sansa whispered into her cupped hands, and dropped her grip as if releasing the words to fly away, to settle with imagined wings in every corner that she could not. She pressed a hand to her head, vaguely embarrassed by her own childishness, though it was not as if there were anyone around to hear it. And still, her head ached in the same way it had for days, weeks… far longer than she could attempt to remember.

Things had changed. She was no longer a maiden. She’d lain back upon her bridal bed and been deflowered by her sweet, polite husband who’d rolled off her gingerly when he was done, careful not to weigh her down with his withered legs. She hated herself for being repulsed by his papery kisses (and, though it shamed her to admit it, his physical paralysis). She remembered that Bran, too, would have had a lady wife, someone expected to love him and bear his children—but that made her think of Bran. Plus, Willas was old, so much older than she expected. Sansa told herself that it shouldn’t matter. But, in ways that she had never anticipated—not as a dreaming girl, and not when she’d accepted Margaery’s plans with a burst of long-unfamiliar hope in her chest—it did.

The southern air felt thin in her lungs and she twisted in discomfort in her bed every night, sweat beading on her forehead from the nightmares. It was even warmer in Highgarden than it had been in King’s Landing. The new southron dresses she wore to evade the heat, as gauzy and thin as all ladies had them here, made her feel even more exposed than if she had worn no clothing at all.

She swam every day in the Mander, relishing the feeling of the cool green water. It was true that they were less modest here; that was one Southern trait Sansa had adopted for her own. She swam nude, always in the same secluded bend of the river. Modesty was a thing of the past when she moved, every day, hasty and single-minded, to strip off her sweat-drenched garments, eager only to enter the water and forget everything else. She stayed under the surface as long as she could, holding her breath like she was born to water, born a Tully just like her mother.

She did this by herself. She did almost everything by herself these days.

Homesickness was like a disease: daily, it sapped her energy and made her head throb. Yet Sansa was homesick not only for a place but for her memories, for people alive now only in her head. Mostly, she just felt sick, ripped up inside with an intense longing to be—not _here_. And she felt unable to connect with anything or anyone not inside, preserved within the perfect prism of her memories.

Every day she reminded herself, desperately, to be grateful, but a gray fog clouded her days and stopped her from ever feeling joy. She put up a wonderful front, though—or so she thought. After the Lannisters, acting for the Tyrells was easy. At least the Tyrells looked at her kindly.

She’d thought she was doing a good job, anyway. That notion was dispelled the day the Queen of Thorns called Sansa to her, bringing Sansa to the beautiful solar from which she ran Highgarden with an iron fist. Somehow, the old woman was less intimidating now that she was truly part of Sansa’s family. Or perhaps Sansa could simply no longer bring herself to care.

“Sansa, child.” The Queen of Thorns wasted no time with formalities. “Are you happy here?”

Once, Sansa would have flinched with surprise. “Yes, Grandmother,” she answered now, somewhat dully.

Olenna eyed her closely, apparently forgiving the title she had demanded Sansa use, but thereafter seemed to mistrust every time it left Sansa’s mouth. “Willas tells me that you have been very sad and listless.”

Sansa’s heart ached. Her husband treated her so gently, with such concern in his eyes. But she could not be the perfect wife she had always expected she would be—she simply could not do it. Not when she could hardly rise from her bed in the morning and accept that she lived here now, in a place even warmer than the capitol, this place whose humid air she could hardly breathe.

Sansa Tyrell. That was who she was now, and she would have to learn to be better at being that woman. It was her duty.

“I know, my lady.” She bowed her head. “I will try harder, I promise.”

There was a pregnant pause, in which Sansa realized too late that Olenna had not asked Sansa to do anything. The old woman had only given a statement. Sansa was the one who had filled in the blanks with the weight of her obligation.

“I’ve had a raven,” Olenna said clearly, after the moment had passed, looking at Sansa with keen, sharp eyes. “The queen is arriving sooner than expected. Today, in fact. That should cheer you up, I warrant.”

Sansa’s heart leapt to her throat, and she took a tentative step back. The withered old woman sat blinking at her, clearly expecting a positive response, some sort of response, _something_. But Sansa, though she tried with every bit of her tired mind, could not think of a single thing to say.

 

  

 

When she heard the thunder of hooves that announced the approach of the royal procession, she slipped out of Highgarden castle, out of the flurry of court, and ran to her secluded spot along the river. Out of all the many royals coming to Highgarden, there was only one person who she cared to see, and that person would come to her. She lay down on the riverbank and closed her eyes. Perhaps she dozed off.

“Hello, Sansa,” she heard above her, minutes or maybe hours later.

She opened her eyes. The sun was lower in the sky, casting a tranquil warm glow over the lushness of riverbank green. She sat up, and turned around slowly.

“Hello,” said Margaery Tyrell, once again. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkling, and her fair skin glowed in a low-cut lavender gown shot through with gold. She looked down at Sansa, and smiled. In the calm glow of the late afternoon sun, she was radiant, as beautiful as she had ever been. And now, she was the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

Margaery had survived her trial by the Faith, proving her virtue and maidenhead, and risen up to even greater heights. There was not a person in Westeros who didn’t know her name, speaking it with as much reverence as they had had hatred for the queen before. Cersei Lannister had been locked away at Casterly Rock, raving all the while, before meeting her end in a haze of mysterious circumstances. No one knew exactly what had befallen the former queen—and no one, it seemed, cared enough to find out. Yet if the grisly end of her predecessor fazed Margaery, it did not show on her face or in her queenly bearing.

“Your Grace,” Sansa said moderately. She got to her feet, at last, gathering her light skirts in one hand and dropping a curtsey.

“Come, Sansa,” Margaery said warmly, “you know I’m always Margaery to you.” Stepping forward, she took Sansa’s hands in her own, and kissed Sansa on both cheeks like a gracious monarch. Sansa inhaled, and smelled her perfume (and that, at least, had not changed). Then the queen pulled back and, catching Sansa’s eyes for one sly second, leaned in and kissed Sansa full on the mouth.

Sansa stiffened, for a moment. Then she allowed herself to respond in kind. She felt Margaery smile, forehead pressed against Sansa's own. But before the queen could push things any further, Sansa pulled away. 

“Margaery,” she said softly. “It’s been a long time.”

“Not so very long,” Margaery said, still smiling. 

“It feels like a long time,” she insisted. _Since you went away, and left me._

“Ah, yes.” Margaery put a finger under Sansa’s chin. “Well, I suppose we’re both women wedded now, aren’t we?”

Sansa nodded, lowering her eyes. She didn’t need any reminding of the fact, when she knew it well enough.

“Yes, things are different now,” she said softly. Margaery only shook her head and smiled, eyes bright, not following or not willing to follow Sansa’s thoughts.

She resented Margaery for having gone away, and leaving her, even though that had always been the plan. Margaery had delivered on her part of the bargain; it had always been Sansa’s responsibility, after that, to find her own happiness. It had gone unquestioned that substituting one Tyrell for another would be just as good. “Do you miss me, in King’s Landing?” she persisted.

“Yes,” Margaery told her, face lit with something like coy amusement. But she didn’t, Sansa could tell.

Suddenly weary of the shallows of their conversation, she turned away, only just catching the look of consternation that crossed the little queen’s face. Facing the river, she could feel Margaery’s eyes at her back.

“Sansa…”

“Let’s go for a swim,” she said shortly, looking back over her shoulder. Her head hurt with anger, anger at Margaery that the other girl didn’t fully deserve. The river would clear her head. It always did.

Margaery’s face brightened, losing that look of confusion, and she nodded.

Sansa bent her head and began to undo the laces of her dress with practiced ease. Her fingers were so quick that she was halfway off with her gown before she looked up to see Margaery, watching Sansa with bemusement in those sweet eyes.

“I swim here very often,” she said, by way of explanation. She didn’t feel like saying anything more.

Raising her eyebrows as a silent reply, Margaery brought her hands up to her own dress, and began to slowly unfasten the laces. She looked a little surprised by Sansa’s boldness—but then, Sansa had changed.

Finished, Sansa stripped off her dress and walked into the water; Margaery followed with only a spare moment of hesitation, laying her queenly gown on the shady bank of the river before moving forward. She splashed through the shallows, and joined Sansa in the languid depths of the Mander.  

In the water, at least, they had the semblance of being equal: two nude women, sleek as fish cutting through the drift, like naiads in the cool green water. Fearless of the tugging current, and just as intrepid as Sansa remembered, Margaery swam right out to the middle of the river. She ducked under and smoothed her hair back from her face as she came back up, water streaming down her glossy brown head. Taking a breath, Sansa went under, and swam out to meet the older girl.

Margaery gazed at her as she came closer, the two of them kicking water to stay afloat. “You’ve become such a good swimmer,” she observed, her rosebud mouth parted sweetly.

Without a word, Sansa leaned in and kissed the other girl, as hard as she could in the watery circumstances. Underwater their bodies brushed, and the brush of wet silky skin below the surface, that vague feeling of something intimate, was enough to set a hard little thrill right through her. She dove underwater again, evading the other woman. When she came up again some distance away, she saw that Margaery was looking at her. “Come here,” she said, tipping her head towards the shallows, and Margaery followed just as Sansa had known she would.

Sansa swam ahead, dipping under the water like a fish, and dropped her feet down toward the river bottom until she could feel the sand under her toes and her shoulders emerged above the surface. Through the water, Margaery came up close behind her. Turning, a hot, gripping feeling in her chest, Sansa took the queen’s arm with claw-like grasp, pulled her in and kissed her again, biting a little. Never one to be shown up, Margaery made a throaty sound in response, and pushed back.

They pressed even closer. Margaery’s hand pushed hard up against Sansa, cupping Sansa’s breast, raking across with greedy fingers; she pushed two other fingers into Sansa’s mouth, leaned in, and kissed Sansa messily around them, all tongue. Sansa, grasping the back of the older girl’s head in turn, felt something catch between in the middle of her body, that old lifting in her chest like a bubble of air that wouldn’t rest until it was popped. It had been so long, since this.

And long after everything else between them was gone, they still had this. They no longer had to ask, or be gentle. Sansa supposed she should be grateful.

She tore away to walk through the shallows, water streaming down the curves of her body, pooling between her legs. She left because she knew Margaery would follow, that there was no way the Tyrell queen would walk away once so aroused, and she was right. Behind her came the hasty splashing steps of her erstwhile lover, and soon enough Sansa had been pushed down onto her back on the grassy riverbank, little pieces of grass sticking to Margaery’s hands as she lifted them from beside Sansa, smoothing Sansa’s wet hair back from her face. It was messy. But then again, that’s what they had become: a messy couple, coupling on a riverbank. They didn’t care who saw them because it didn’t matter any more.

They kissed, hard, and Sansa pressed her wet hand over Margaery’s elegant pale throat, vulnerable as a swan’s neck. She spread her fingers, practicing. Margaery wasn’t afraid—she was never afraid—but she made a sound of irritation, darting her blue eyes to look at Sansa briefly. Sansa could feel the older girl weighing how she had changed. A moment elapsed before Margaery let out a short puff of breath, dismissive, almost derisive, and Sansa felt the color rise in her cheeks. She squirmed and twisted her hips under the older girl, wanting suddenly either to get on with it, or to get free.

Then Margaery leaned down, raked her teeth around Sansa’s nipple, and reached down to stroke between Sansa’s legs, and Sansa forgot about her ridged resentment. With that, the little queen took her with a dominance that seemed to insist that no matter how different Sansa had grown, she would still come apart at under Margaery’s mouth and expert tongue, and hands.

Eventually she came, gasping, arching her back and grinding against Margaery in the slippery wet of her own release and the river water. Margaery gave a huge sigh and rolled away, off to the side.

After that Sansa was hazily aware, as she panted out the comedown of her relief, of Margaery leaning back over her, wet brown head bowed. The queen bent to kiss Sansa’s belly, and drew her lips over the soft tender hill of Sansa’s stomach.

“Do you often share your husband’s bed?” Margaery asked after a while, tactfully, mouth hovering somewhere between Sansa’s navel and the spread of her legs.

Brought down to earth with a start, Sansa rolled her eyes and stared up at the cover of the cherry trees. “Do you often share yours’?”

Margaery laughed softly, though Sansa had not meant the question as a joke. “He’s twelve,” she said, as if it were such a silly thing to ask.

Which hadn’t answered Sansa’s question. She restrained her growing irritation, and answered with the truth. “Yes. I share my husband’s bed at least once a week.”

Margaery raised her head and looked at Sansa, with a small smile. “Is that so?” She turned, and placed another kiss. Then she drew her fingers thoughtfully across Sansa’s humid skin.

“I think,” she said, “you would be much happier if you had a child, Sansa.” 

Sansa’s throat felt like it was closing. 

Yes, she did pray every day to get pregnant, for a child who would anchor her here, giving her a family to replace the one that she no longer had. She had been on her own for so long. Once, she’d thought she had Margaery, but Margaery had left her, and was now nothing more than a quick tumble in the grass between visits to their respective marriage beds. And the rest of the Tyrells meant nothing to her, as much as Sansa tried to persuade herself that they were now her family. She had spent long days thinking endlessly of how her mother had left Riverrun for Winterfell, and had made a home there and been happy. But that made her think of her mother, and of Winterfell. And so it went.

“Yes,” she answered at last. “I agree. I think I would.”

Margaery nodded firmly, the lines around her pretty eyes crinkling with her certainty. She pushed a strand of hair off her face with a strong gesture, in the same way she always had. Sansa had once found that so enchanting, along with all of Margaery’s numerous other habits. But the spell had worn off, and up close Margaery’s beauty was nothing more than a pleasing arrangement of features and charms that faded, really, in the face of her naked ambition.

As if roused by the answer she had received, Margaery reached out her hand to touch Sansa again, fingers tracing concentric swirls on Sansa’s belly, lazily, before moving farther south to trail through the burnished coppery curls there. Sansa closed her eyes and let herself drift away, as Margaery leaned over, spread her apart, and took her again there on the riverbank, royal head facing away from Sansa. Although Sansa tightened her fingers in Margaery’s hair, her pleasure was blind when it came, and it might have come from anyone. 

Margaery would only leave her again, after all. But she was right—what she’d said, about having a child. Sansa thought, the idea struggling into certainty in her mind, that she would visit her husband’s chambers that night. If that were what it would take to anchor her to this place, to make her stop feeling like the homeless shadow of someone she had once been—then yes, she would try her hardest.

_A child._ Sansa’s heart expanded at the very thought, gripping her in an unfamiliar spiral of warmth. Perhaps a child would mean she could finally have something that belonged to her—maybe, finally, she would be able to claim some small piece of happiness for her own.

_As for bedding my husband_ , she thought with a dry tremor that felt like the total opposite of desire, _Well, that truly is the least of my worries_.

Margaery had taught her all too well. Sex was, really, only the means to an end. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The series will continue in the same future universe, but there won't be any more Sansa/Margaery.


End file.
